Which ottoman capture constantinople

Their agreement to join the Catholic Church was exceedingly unpopular. The Rise of the Ottoman Empire. By this stage, Constantinople was underpopulated and dilapidated. The population of the city had collapsed so severely that it was now little more than a cluster of villages separated by fields. Despite a desperate last-ditch defense of the city by the massively outnumbered Christian forces 7, men, 2, of whom were sent by Rome , Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans after a two-month siege on May 29, The last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI Palaiologos, was last seen casting off his imperial regalia and throwing himself into hand-to-hand combat after the walls of the city were taken.

On the third day of the conquest, Mehmed II ordered all looting to stop and sent his troops back outside the city walls. The capture of Constantinople and two other Byzantine splinter territories soon thereafter marked the end of the Roman Empire, an imperial state that had lasted for nearly 1, years. The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople also dealt a massive blow to Christendom, as the Islamic Ottoman armies thereafter were left unchecked to advance into Europe without an adversary to their rear.

Constantinople was transformed into an Islamic city: the Hagia Sophia became a mosque, and the city eventually became known as Istanbul. The conquest of the city of Constantinople, and the end of the Byzantine Empire, was a key event in the Late Middle Ages, which also marks, for some historians, the end of the Middle Ages. The Walls of Constantinople. Yet in , they fell to the Ottoman Turks. Skip to main content.

Search for:. Key Points The restored Byzantine Empire was surrounded by enemies. It would ultimately become the Ottoman Empire. The west would only provide the east with help against the Turks if the east converted from Orthodox to Catholic Christianity. This sparked riots among the eastern Orthodox populace, who hated the western Catholics for the sack of Constantinople.

When this huge artillery piece was actually cast and constructed in faraway Adrianople, it had to be hauled more than a hundred miles to the besieged city. Hundreds of Turkish soldiers and teams of oxen dragged it there, moving two and a half miles every day. When it finally had been dragged and put into position, the sight must have been awe-inspiring, and clearly very bad news for the defenders of Constantinople.

With deafening thunder, the cannon fired. In fact, the cannon could only be fired seven times each day, because it needed to be cooled off in between or risk exploding. In addition to this monster, guns were many other smaller cannons that continued the bombardment that had begun. This was the sound of a military revolution, making stone walls and towers and battlements largely obsolete. Learn more about the fall of the Roman Empire.

So, the defenders were delighted when some reinforcements from the West actually did arrive in spite of the theological differences. These reinforcements came from the Italian commercial city-state of Genoa, and among their number was an expert in fortifications. That Genoese fortifications expert, remarkably, helped the Byzantines to rebuild or reinforce crumbling parts of the city wall by night after they had been pounded by cannon during the day.

During the night, the damage of the day would be made good. Further Genoese ships actually managed to break through the Ottoman blockade and reach the harbor, bringing reinforcements and supplies. In an amazing military feat, the Ottomans actually lifted some of their own ships out of the water and rolled them over land and surrounding mountains for around two or three miles. They used logs as rollers, and by brute force transported them over the terrain.

This is a transcript from the video series Turning Points in Modern History. Watch it now, Wondrium. Next, they set the ships down on the water on the far side of the chain that had been drawn across the entrance of the harbor at Golden Horn. The Ottomans had circumvented that famous defense.

To demoralize the defenders and to stir fear inside the city, the Turks also impaled prisoners within sight of the walls. The Byzantines responded by throwing Turkish prisoners to their deaths from the ramparts. After long weeks of siege, after the relentless pounding of the cannon that had been set up and directed by the Hungarian professional Orban, the walls at last broke.

The city was about to be taken. Through it all, Emperor Constantine refused to surrender and rallied both local inhabitants of the city and Latin Christians from Venice and Genoa, who were merchants who had worked in the city, all fighting together in defense of the beleaguered metropolis. When the walls were breached, Emperor Constantine did something dramatic.

With that, he tore off the emblems of his imperial rank, which marked him as the emperor, and like an ordinary soldier rushed into the thickest part of the fighting, and he was never seen alive again. The city of Constantinople fell on May 29, The Sultan Mehmet entered Hagia Sophia, what had been a church, and now turned it into a mosque.

Geometric designs were painted over the famous mosaics of Hagia Sophia, and verses of the Koran were placed where earlier holy icons had been hung. Sultan Mehmed, II changed this with the use of cannons forever. Sultan's massive cannon fired on the walls for weeks. Baltaoglu Suleyman Bey launched the first attack to enter the Golden Horn gulf on 9th April and failed to break the chains which was placed at the mouth of the horn. This chain, which floated on wooden logs, was strong enough to prevent any Ottoman ship from entering Golden Horn.

During this chaos and widespread feeling of lose, with the Sultan's spiritual menthor Aksemseddin promised certain success about the conquest. Cannons were not enough to take the city.